Friday, July 25, 2008

Here's part of a talk I had with Tom Spurgeon of ComicsReporter about comics and recessions. Some of this is stuff I've said elsewhere, but I think the general theory is true — we need to look at front-market and back-market separately, and then you need to look at how the structure of the comics market at any given time either exposes or protects the field from external forces.

Tom is a little surprised I consider the back-market in these discussions, but I think the scale of it is such that it shouldn't be overlooked. I did some figuring a few years ago, using eBay volume and some guesswork, which found it in the low single-digit hundreds of millions, comparable with what Diamond was selling that year. I no longer track back-issue sales to the degree I once had (where I used to track everything when writing my own price guide, as an Overstreet advisor I tend to focus on my specialty area, numeric supply), but I do still think it's a part of the comics economy that definitely impacts the frontmarket. Many of the dealers are the same people who sell new comics, and the health of the backmarket can also be a reflection of enthusiasm in the field.

Definitely check out ComicsReporter when you can — a great resource to have.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Updated! As I surmised last month, June 2008 comics sales in the direct market had an easier time in comparison with June 2007
sales, in part thanks to the second best trade paperback month recorded
among Diamond’s Top 100 Trade Paperbacks. While ground was still lost
in the narrower categories (such as Top 300 comics units and dollars,
down 4% and 3% respectively), the Trade Paperback and wider categories
saw increases year-over-year. Overall June 2008 orders were up 5% to
nearly $37 million, with Diamond's Top 25 trades up 25% to just over $6
million.

The result is that all categories are
still even or slightly off for the second quarter and for the year, but
the margins are such that they could be made up in the second half of
the year if the market performs even slightly better than it did in the
second half of 2007. The overall total (the sum of all
Diamond comics, trade paperback, and magazine orders, including items
not on the top-sellers charts) is at $208.8 million, just under last
year's first half mark of $210.11 million. Diamond's top-selling trade
paperbacks category is the only one that's up — by about $30,000.
Diamond sold about 2.6 million fewer comic books in its Top 300 in the
first half of 2008 versus the first half of 2007; that's the category
with the most ground to make up.

There were four titles above 100,000
copies in estimated sales; perhaps the bigger help to June making up
ground was the three trade paperbacks with orders over 10,000 copies.

OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)June 2008: $36.97 million ($41 million with UK)
Versus 1 year ago this month: +5%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +49%
Q2 2008: $110.5 million, -0.3% vs. Q2 2007YEAR TO DATE: $208.8 million, -0.6% vs. 2007, +46% vs. 2003The ratios this time out are pegged to Detective Comics #845; one point on the scale equals 1% of the sales of Detective. There is a Batman
on the lists to peg to this month, but as it has three order codes I
imagine they picked the simpler route.Three new publisher entries in the Top 300 this month: Hero Initiative, with its Mike Wieringo tribute issue, a joint effort with Marvel; Catastrophic Comics, with William Katt's comic book, Sparks#1; and Great Big, with Voyages of She-Buccaneer #1.

The average price of comic books in
Diamond's Top 300 was $3.34. The weighted average price of the average
comic book ordered was $3.21. The average cost of comics in the Top 25
was $3.11.A little numerological strangeness — here in the sixth month of the year, a month which saw Number of the Beast#6 ship — Diamond's Top 300 comics sold 6.66 million copies to retailers!The Comics Chronicles does not endorse any metaphysical conspiracy theories — we just do the math!

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